Disneyland Australia actual plans or hoax?

[markmansion]

Hey first off I didn't know if this should go here or on the Imagineer thread but here it goes. I found a website for a company called JPI Global that either looks like it was designed by someone with not a lot of graphic design experience or put together as quickly as possible while still looking professional. Anyway there is a project for something called Disneyland Australia Theme Park.

I remembered that when they were building WDW they used dummy corporations to buy and develop land. It would seem like this is a dummy corporation created by Disney to buy up land in Australia but if it was real why would they just some out and say Disneyland Australia and show artwork.

Another thing that got me a little suspicious was that the artwork was small and you couldn't really see it full size, although from what I could see there was a hidden mickey lake in the art work.

Anyway here is the link

[Wedbliss]

Here is another link which discusses this.

Disney and more: Disneyland Australia : Finally, it was not a mirage

Within that blog entry is another link to the JPI site showing a piece of concept art.

The newspaper article shown has a quote from a Disney spokesman:

A spokesman for Disney, John Nicoletti, said his company was constantly exploring opportunities to grow. "As part of that process, we have conversations with lots of entities," he said. "And, while Australia is an attractive market, at this time we have no plans for this region."

That article also ran on the Austrailian ABC News website which gives it more credibility. John Nicoletti is (or at least was as of 2008) the Director of External Communications for the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide Public Affairs team.

I would think an Austrailian Disneyland would be very far off in the future, if it ever happened at all. But it does indeed appear that Disney had some studies done and held talks with Austrailian government officials. This information has been on the web for over a year.

[Ezra]

This all sounded very familliar to me, so I looked it up. Here's the thread in the News Archive from the beginning of last year:

Disney considers Austrailia site

The JPI link is interesting. This isn't a hoax exactly, although the bit of language about being "nominated by Walt Disney Attractions" is a bit misleading. ("Walt Disney Attractions"? It's called Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. Do a little research, folks.) But immediately afterward they say that they were comissioned by "Star Land Company, the Australian Government JV company".

...In other words, the Austrailian government would love to have Disney build a park there, and hired JPI to draw something up that they could use to give Disney a little "nudge". Very ambitious on thier part.

But, I'll say the same thing I said last year. I don't think Disney is shopping for a Park site. I think they're looking for a nice Disney Vactation Club resort site, possibly a hub for Adventures by Disney, and since it's a harbor location they were spying, a port for Disney Cruise Lines. Since they're adding two more ships, a port that they own outright (instead of lease) would be very attractive.

[Disneyland_DHI]

If they are shopping for a site there, I would laugh if it was the exact same as the Disneyland Australia thread here!